


Interrogation

by NorroenDyrd



Series: Should Never Have Existed [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Development, Chemistry, Decisions, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Flashbacks, Gen, Interrogation, Nightmares, Sick Character, Softened Leliana, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-29 03:26:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13918380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: While interrogating the odd Tevinter that has stumbled out of the Fade with a Rift-sealing Mark upon his hand, Leliana discovers that the two of them are similar in a way: they have both strayed too far into the dark, but have memories of loved ones to steer them back.





	Interrogation

Leliana glances down at her doodle of a girl's foot standing daintily on tiptoe in an elegant shoe with swirly embroidery, a large crosshatched gem at the buckle, and lots of foaming ruffles tucked under that gem - and slashes a bold zigzag of ink right across it. Then another, and one more, scraping back and forth with her quill until the entire drawing disappears underneath a blot of black ink.  
  
When she is finished, she presses her lips into a thread-thin line and exhales through her tensened, flaring nostrils - so annoyed by this point that she is about to turn into Cassandra and start smashing things.  
  
She started that hapless doodle to at least somehow fill out the blank spaces in her interrogation minutes, which have been infuriating her more and more the longer she has looked at them.  
  
The heavy odour that hangs in the room - a lingering whiff of of some herbal concoctions, very intense and likely unsavoury - has only been adding up to her growing headache.  
  
They still could not allow the Tevinter to sleep in the common quarters, unguarded - he is (or was), by his own admission, a cultist that played a role in ripping up the very fabric of the world! But as he is not quite hostile, and has actually proven Solas' theory correct and used the flaring Mark upon his hand to seal quite a few rifts in the Veil and protect the Inquisition's forces and the local refugees from demons, he was allowed the privilege of spending his allotted rest time in one of the better furnished cells below the Haven Chantry. It actually has bookcases, probably left over from the time when Brother Genitivi was locked in here by the former inhabitants of the village (those crazed dragon worshippers that tried to convince Surana to defile the ashes of Holy Andraste; though during her especially bitter moments, a small voice whispers profanely to Leliana if agreeing to that may have helped their cause).  
  
There is also a comfortable enough tall-backed chair for Leliana to sink into, with her leg legs crossed and the fingers of her quill-free dancing demandingly over the slightly worn arm rest - while the Tevinter himself looks back at her from below knitted eyebrows, sitting up stiffly in bed.  
  
Leliana strode into the cell, clipboard in hand, the moment the guards at the door sent a jittery, spindly-legged elven messenger to notify her that their charge had woken up his battle wounds healing and his Mark now stable, along with the Breach.  
  
Cassandra - who seems to be taking more and more of a liking to the Tevinter, despite him being an accomplice of Justinia's murderers - tried to protest.  
  
'Let him catch a breath, Leliana!' she little short of clucked, trying to block her path to the dungeons. 'Do you not know what he has been through?'  
  
Oh, Leliana does know that.  
  
She was, after all, right there when the Inquisition's scouts gathered together on the scorched, green-veined ledges that jutted from the sides of the gigantic canyon where the Temple of Sacred Ashes had once stood, and pulled their bow strings taut, ready to shoot down whichever creatures the Fade would bring forth through a dizzyingly expanding and contracting green rift in the heart of the ruins. The largest rift that there was; the dread Breach that had laid waste to this holy place, and taken so many lives.  
  
She was there when the Tevinter stepped forward, his figure seeming so tiny as he walked across the stretch of carved-up ground down below, at the base of the looming molten stone wall, which was mostly black as coal, with acidic light oozing through the cracks in the charred crust here and there like pus from a wound.  
  
She was there when he cast a long, intent look at his own left hand, and then threw it forward, a beam of pulsing green light connecting him to the Breach. When he moved closer and closer to its yawning maw, forcing the searing charge of his Mark down its throat, even as his entire left arm seemed to catch fire, with forked green tongues wrapping tightly round his flesh and licking, licking at it endlessly, hungrily, ready to wear it to the bone. When he tore into his lips with his teeth to suppress a scream of agony, and kept holding his ground, kept giving all of his strength to subdue the Breach's raw, hissing anger; determined to right the horrible wrong of his brethren - the other members of the cult he had claimed to serve.  
  
She was there when the Breach tried to fight back, spewing out a glistening black fountain of gargling, snarling shades that instantly scattered to every corner, some of them gliding a few inches above ground and others floating even higher, their rotting limbs reaching for the Inquisition's archers, eager to fund, to grasp, to break and to twist and to strangle. When this fountain was followed by one last lone creature that crushed through the green vapours of the Breach like a bear would crush through a forest thicket. Except that it was about as enormous as three or four bears, each standing on its hind legs on the shoulders of the other. A colossus of a pride demon, all covered in sharp, rock-hard scales the size of a humans torso; with several pairs of twisting, barbed horns on its triangular head and countless eyes lodged into its skull, a wild fire of bloodlust dancing in them all.  
  
She had been there when, seeing that some of the fighters around him were getting overwhelmed, the Tevinter had to tear himself away from the Breach, and took to zipping from one scout to another, sped up to a white blur by the Face Step spell, and shooting a barrage of fire or lightning bolts upon the shades that accosted them, so that they could continue tracking the motions of the great demon, seeking out the gaps between its scales where a well-placed arrow could wound it the most.  
  
She was there when the Tevinter's conjured barrier was the only thing that kept herself, or one of the scouts, or Varric the dwarf, or Solas the apostate standing after the demon, enraged by the ceaseless stinging arrow pricks in all of its vulnerable spots, shaped a blast of its own primal shock magic into a long, crackling purple whip, which it lashed at the puny mortals scurrying at its feet, with a deep, inhuman malicious laugh. She vividly recollects that their prisoner would grow pale and faint when he powered up those protective spells of his. Exhausted by keeping pace with the battle and trying to ignore the pain in his Mark, he was clearly scrambling for the last few droplets of consciousness with the desperation of a man clawing for water in the desert sand - and yet, still kept going, still kept casting, still kept defending himself and others, not forgetting to have yet another hasty go at the Breach whenever the demon got distracted.  
  
And she was there when the lightning whip caught at Cassandra's ankle, pulling her a few paces across the ground and stunning her with an excruciating electric charge. Even though the whip slipped off a moment later, Cassandra was still rendered helpless long enough for the demon to raise its tree-thick scaled paw over her, intending to rip into her with its long, sabre-like talons - and laughing again. And that was when the Tevinter, eyes enormous and bulging in shock almost like boiled egg whites, pupils reduced to inky dots, leapt in front of her, so that the full force of the creature's strike fell upon him, shredding the green mercenary coat he had been given and painting his chest and sides with soggy splashes of crimson. He had to finish up sealing the Breach on his knees, breathless and blank-faced, his right hand pressed limply against the bleeding claw marks; while Cassandra - promptly revived by Solas - drove her blade, again and again, into the gnarly flesh of the demon's ankles until she finally brought it to its knees, with such fervour that one might have thought that the creature had done her some great personal wrong.  
  
The Tevinter lost his senses shortly thereafter, and spent the next three days plunged into heavy, restless slumber. Which would have made for a heartrending story, to be sure - if Leliana still cared for stories. But in the real world, where true love is nothing but a pretty picture on a card that people can and will play against you, and most knights in shining armour are dying on the inside from a crippling lyrium addiction fostered within them to keep them leashed to the Chantry, the Tevinter's heroics have done nothing but grind the process of Leliana's investigation into his cult to a painful standstill. It is so hard to scavenge for intelligence on the enemy when your chief informant, ashen-faced and bandaged all over like a Nevarran mummy, is tossing and turning in his bed, seemingly suffocating under the weight of the prison walls and ceiling, and slurring muffled snatches of words of that barely have any useful meaning; something about a child, mostly.  
  
His nightmares - and he has clearly been having them aplenty - have not been particularly insightful either. And Leliana did have Solas meditate by the man's side and dive into the Fade, in hopes that his subconscious would reveal what had preceded his arrival at the Conclave. Something beyond the few imprints of memories against the damaged Veil, which the Inquisition had seen when exploring the ruined Temple.  
  
Dreams are an excellent tool for character study, after all: Surana once confessed to Leliana that she truly began to understand her companions only after seeing what snares had been used for muddling their minds by the demon of sloth that had taken residence in the smoke-filled, gore-splattered hallways of Kinloch Hold. And while Leliana had no interest in becoming friendly with the Tevinter, she had been counting on exposing his best-kept secrets.  
  
Her hopes were sadly misplaced, however.  
  
Leliana flips back through her papers to check - and curls her lips. So many scribbles (quite a few with more shoe doodles along the margins), all of them irrelevant.  
  
'Vision content, as reported by Solas: darkspawn horde. Close-ups of genlocks and hurlocks: white eyes, saliva dripping from teeth, skin yellow-black, peeling off to show nests of maggots. Memories of the Blight? Denerim slaver? No. Dealt with them all. Loghain confirmed when recruited. Plus, background not like Denerim. Rocks, orange sand'.  
  
'More sand, absorbing fresh blood. Vision location likely in the Anderfels. Hurlocks squatting on the ground, ripping into something dark and mangled. Human corpse? Vision flickers between images of hurlocks and hyenas, maws coloured red up to the eyes. Close-up of a woman's hand, torn off the body below the wrist. Skin brown. Antivan? Tevinter? Wedding band clearly visible'.  
  
'Young man - human, mid-twenties - with some resemblance to prisoner ("child?") drowning in dark liquid. Tar-like texture. Same liquid begins to trickle from his eyes like tears. Whispers "Find me!" before going under. Still no sign of cultists; no discussion of Conclave'.  
  
And the notes go on and on in the same vein; for all the time he slept, the Tevinter refused to dream of anything helpful. Add to that Cassandra's interruptions, too.  
  
She would usually creep in, looking somewhat awkward, as if she were feeling too big for the cell, at the heel of Apothecary Adan when he came to change the prisoner's bandages.  
  
'You will let me know when he recovers, will you not?' she would repeatedly tell Adan and the guards, in a rushed, insistent tone. 'At once? Even with the Breach stable, there are reports of Rifts opening all across the Hinterlands. They have to be sealed!'  
  
Her voice when she announced that was always so loud that at one moment, it drew the attention of Varric, who had been strolling idly across the dungeon floor, no doubt eavesdropping for 'story inspiration'.  
  
'Admit it, Seeker: are just being so fussy because you think our Vint friend shielding you with his body was romantic!' he teased smugly, leaning against the cell door with his hands in his pockets and his legs crossed at the ankle, and squinting like a drowsy, well-fed cat.  
  
Cassandra's face turned the purest shade of beetroot - something that Leliana still finds amusing, even amid all the darkness that presses down at them, stifling them more and more every day.  
  
'I most certainly do not!' she cried, arms flying up emphatically.  
  
'Says the woman who squealed and flailed about like a fifteen-year-old on Rivaini coffee when I described Hawke and Merrill's first kiss,' Varric murmured, the cat impression intensifying.  
  
Leliana remembers raising an eyebrow, still amused - and slightly exasperated at the same time.  
  
'Why would you include such a detail in your report on the Champion?' she asked.  
  
'By popular demand,' Varric shrugged - and backed away just in case, as Cassandra curled her fingers into a fist.  
  
'The dwarf is slandering me, Leliana!' she fumed. And there really was something of a fifteen-year-old in her tone. Or maybe even a ten-year-old, running to complain to the teacher that a boy had pulled her braid.  
  
'And as for the Tevinter - I do not even remotely like the man! He was with those that opened the Breach! He never even made an attempt to deny it!'  
  
Ironically, though, that would actually have raised Cassandra's approval of the Tevinter, whether she realized it or not. Leliana has long noted how much she detests being lied to. If the man had pretended to be, say, an innocent Tevinter merchant, caught in the aftermath of the explosion by surprise while travelling south on business - that would have made Cassandra his mortal enemy the moment she found out what he had been concealing.  
  
'I am only here because he has been making himself very useful, and the Inquisition has further need of him!'  
  
'The moment he is well enough to walk, I will pass him on to you, don't fret,' Leliana cut Cassandra short, before ushering both her and Varric out of the cell. Their bickering was interfering with Solas' trance - and furthermore, with Cassandra there, the Tevinter's nightmares would always begin to recede.  
  
But enough digressions. The prisoner is awake now. And Plan A (the examination of nightmares) having failed, Leliana is now struggling to squeeze at least some information out of him by means of Plan B. An intense interrogation. The same questions, asked over and over in different wording, for several days in a row. And almost all of them fruitless.  
  
She has learned his name - Gereon Alexius, member of the Magisterium. 'Former, I suppose, at this point'.  
  
Though that barely tells her anything. Tevinter mostly stews in its own poisonous political soup, and even the greatest masters of the Game, with a network of associates spanning not only Orlais but also Antiva, Nevarra, and other nations, cannot really say much on who is who in there.  
  
Josie, being the precious living encyclopedia that she is, does recall the name of a Felix Alexius, whom an elderly Orlesian University professor gushed to her about recently, in a completely unrelated conversation (as all people his age tend to do).  
  
This Felix seems to have been well-loved in the social circles of Val Royeaux, despite being the son of a Tevinter noble, and made quite a lasting impression on the academia, having once been engaged in some manner of advanced mathematical research.  
  
'No matter how I tried to steer the subject back to what I had come for,' Josie recollected, 'The professor insisted on reminiscing about Messere Alexius. I have his words engrained in my memory quite firmly, due to the amount of saliva involved. "He was destined for great things, great discoveries. No other students like him".  
  
Apparently - much to the good professor's regret - Felix vanished without a trace a couple of years ago, going off on a family trip for Satinalia and never coming back.  
  
That must be the Tevinter's son. He has certainly been quite passionate in explaining to Leliana that the cultists had enlisted his aid with 'keeping out intruders' (like that Trevelyan girl, whom they saw burst in on the ritual in the Breach’s memories) by offering a cure for some lingering disease the young man had contracted.  
  
'I am aware that you could not care less about any of this,' he would say huskily, leaning forward in his bed, with his thin, cracked lips twitching. 'But if I continue to work for you... Would you allow me to contact my son? To perhaps bring him here, where I can...'  
  
'You are right: I could not care less,' Leliana would shut him down. 'And now is too early to ask for favours. Tell me of the inner workings of your cult. The hierarchy. The numbers. The movements. The strategy'.  
  
She supposes he is due some credit for honestly spelling out what he knows. But Maker, that is so little! The man must have been too absorbed in his own problems to properly converse with any of his fellows, or notice anything beyond his son's symptoms. Staying impersonal and detached is evidently not his strong suit; most unprofessional.  
  
He possesses no in-depth information on the cult - the Venatori - save for them being a group of Tevinter supremacists that worship some mad sorcerer who refers to himself as 'The Elder One' and proclaims himself to be the harbinger of the Imperium's new golden age.  
  
The description of this Elder One's appearance: great height, twisted features, tattered remnants of a once lavish robe - is somewhat reminiscent of that Architect creature that Surana wrote to Leliana about, a year or so after the Blight.  
  
She called him a sentient darkspawn, and swore that he was well-intentioned, if a bit unsettling. But fond of her friend as Leliana still is (as she admits during lapses of weakness, biting into her lips in order not to smile too broadly when she pictures her open, sunburnt face, framed by two lopsided ponytails), she would not trust her judgement too much.  
  
Surana has always seen the best in everyone, from the aloof bog witch and the drunken dwarf, to the scared young blood mage she had once studied with, or the assassin sent to kill her... Or the man who gave that assassin his orders (and eventually became the lover of the very Warden he had been hunting... poor Alistair would have been devastated if he had stayed long enough to know). No, dear, sweet Wendy Surana would go on denying that someone is malevolent even as she pulled out the dagger they had used to stab her with.  
  
But the other hand, this obsession with the glory of the Imperium does not sound like the Architect at all. He cares more about the darkspawn than humans, from the Imperium or otherwise.  
  
Just to make sure, Leliana will have to reach out to the Wardens. See if the Architect has broken his pact with them and taken to the path of war. Still, this is all conjecture; drawing vague pictures in the sand. What she needs to know is what orders to give her scouts. Whom to track down. Whose caravans to intercept. Whom to assassinate. And Alexius is not being helpful here.  
  
There was also something about how the cult 'might have been... but probably isn't any longer... or is... can't tell for certain... now that I am here.. in the... now' interested in indenturing the rebel mages that have headed for Redcliffe. But Alexius' explanation of what 'was to have been done with the mages... in a different future' (something about time travel? and Trevelyan?) was far too jumbled and long-winded, combined with a lot of frantic gestures that eventually led to his bandages slipping off - which, in turn, caused him to sink back against his pillows, breathing heavily and trying to cast a healing spell on himself.  
  
After dashing down a brief reminder to double-check Redcliffe (double-checking never hurts), Leliana has written the rest of it off as delirium. Or a clumsy attempt to divert her attention by spinning tall tales, like Varric did when Cassandra tried to yank the Champion's location out of him (Leliana really should have interrogated him herself).  
  
When she consulted Solas, as the resident magic expert (discreetly taking him outside the cell so that Alexius would not hear), he voted for the first version, shaking his head and saying that to alter the flow of time, someone would need a very powerful spell, 'surely impossible in within the limitations of... this world'.  
  
'If the man truly believes that he has seen an alternate future of some sort, this has to be an illusion from the Fade,' he declared categorically, while his gaze kept travelling back past the bars. 'He is still recovering from the battle, and from the pain of the Mark. That has to have confused at least some spirits'.  
  
Having thanked him for his input, Leliana has still gone on thinking to herself that second version - conscious trickery - is probably more likely. But regardless of intent, these ramblings about what would have happened in some hypothetical future have brought Leliana closer to what she wanted to hear.  
  
Letting her clipboard slide down her leg into the corner of the armchair, Leliana ponders whether or not to get up and press her hands into Alexius' wounds as an added... stimulus to think harder. But just at this moment, he jogs his own memory.  
  
'Oh!' he exclaims, sounding slightly choked up and raising his hand to catch Leliana's attention. 'We... They will be hunting the Tranquil! Their...'  
  
He pauses, discomforted, and pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes for a moment and breathing in deeply.  
  
'Their skulls are just what is needed for a... a scrying process - to reveal... shards of some sort. Pieces of a key that will lead to an ancient artifact... I think? I was told... would gave been told... ah, no matter... I know that there are such shards - and ritual sites - scattered all over the Fereldan Hinterlands... Perhaps other regions as well... I was to...'  
  
He slides his hand down his face.  
  
'I was to lure in any Tranquil left unattended during this war of yours... And... have them killed... those clueless branded wretches... Now someone else will likely take my place...'  
  
Leliana lets out a prolonged 'Hmm'. Now, this could be of use. Find the ritual sites; keep watch over the displaced Tranquil stumbling through the Hinterlands - and they might find whoever in hunting them. Maybe catch a less frazzled, more qualified informant. One that can actually be subjected to all effective interrogation tactics without reservation, because they won't have a valuable Mark on their hand.  
  
Fiddling with her quill, Leliana wonders if she could use some of Minaeve's charges as bait for the Venatori. The thought is met with a steep lurch in her stomach, and, despite herself, she thinks back to Surana - to Wendy - again. Wendy would have hated her for this - no, not hated; the poor elf does not have a single hateful bone in her body. She would have been horrorstruck, looking at Leliana with her eyes like bottomless, glistening black pools, frozen up with her fingers entwined over her chest so tightly that it would take an effort to disentangle them.  
  
Just like she did while gazing in wordless anguish after Alistair, as he stormed off into the night, abandoning them all on the eve of a crucial battle because she had decided to offer redemption to the man he - perhaps rightly - thought a monster. Or after her blood mage friend, as he raced away at a stumbling pace, up of the hidden passageway that had taken them to the Redcliffe dungeons, and off into the woods, along a winding darkened path where Wendy could not follow. Or after Cullen - far from becoming a commander back then; not a scarred warrior with tired eyes, but a fledgling Templar boy, freshly emerged from the bubble of burning purple light where the corrupted mages had locked him, shaking all over and spitting curses at his one-time crush, before staggering away from her, his blood-splattered armour melting into the deep blue shadows in one of the tower's further corners.  
  
Leliana can just see her face, with the same blank, dazed expression - all energy having been knocked out of her, leaving her too petrified even for a sob - as when she lost the people she had once cared for. And she can imagine her lips moving weakly, shaping the words,  
  
'I can't believe I lost you too, Leliana. I can't believe you have turned into someone you never were... and... started using people... even vulnerable people like the Tranquil... to further your goals... I can't believe you have become like...'  
  
Leliana tosses her head abruptly from one shoulder to the other, dispelling the vision of Wendy before she can say that name. A touching little speech, truly - also straight out of storybook, like Alexius' battle with the demon. And also irrelevant. She does what must be done - there is no need to fall prey to a guilty conscience taking form of her best friend. If a Spymaster can even afford tossing such emotional words around.  
  
'Lady Nightingale! A report for you! I... I know you said not to disturb you - but this requires your immediate attention!'  
  
An urgently raised voice cuts through the dungeon like a rogue's throw blade; and presently, a hooded figure appears of the cell's threshold, let through by Alexius' guards. A scout in the green and brown Inquisition uniform, holding out a jaggedly torn slip of paper for Leliana to examine.  
  
Though small, it is covered all over in a dense layer of slanting scrawls, spelling out news that... Oh Maker.  
  
Leliana, who has gotten up from her armchair to receive the scout's dispatch, takes a tiny step back. The tiniest step. Not even noticeable to the outside eye - but enough to make her feel the chair's tall back against her side, solid and supportive.  
  
Farrier is dead. The report's level of detail makes it unmistakable. Farrier - one of her best agents! - is dead. Killed by Butler - whom she has suspected of hiding something for a while, but never would have thought capable of murder! She... They... They were friends once. Dear heavens, now she herself sounds like Wendy! Which is wrong, wrong, wrong! Wendy is a lovely young woman, but in Leliana's position, acting like her is a fault! A sign of weakness!  
  
Clenching one fist behind her back to summon composure, Leliana nods meaningfully to the scout.  
  
'Pass the order on. You know what is to be done. Make it quick, painless if you can. For old times'.  
  
'Wait... Might I inquire what is happening?' Alexius pipes up, stirring uncomfortably in his bed.  
  
'An agent of mine has turned on us,' Leliana says, a metallic note in her voice. 'Decided to jump to the other side of the board in the Orlesian Great Game. Murdered an... irreplaceable asset, and endangered a few others'.  
  
'And you are going to kill him, just like that?' Alexius persists, tenser with every word.  
  
'Would your cult not kill you for treachery if they caught up with you?' Leliana retaliates, feeling her nostrils quiver again.  
  
He shudders - and has to grip at his covers. Like Leliana had to fall back against the armchair.  
  
'Yes, but you are not my cult, are you? You are supposed to be better!'  
  
Leliana clicks her tongue disapprovingly.  
  
'Are you trying to appeal to my idealistic side?' she demands, the metal edge in every word growing ever sharper. 'We cannot afford ideals at a time like this!'  
  
Alexius lifts his hand to his face, for another one of his habitual nose-pinching gestures.  
  
'Hmm, one could say that,' he agrees, once his fingers are unclasped and both his hands come to rest in his lap, index fingers tapping lightly against one another. The tapping becomes more and more rapid, like the frenzied wing motions of a moth trapped inside a glass lamp.  
  
'I thought I had ideals... Making life better for the people of my homeland... Building a future for my family... And we all know where that got me. But I am trying to climb out - and frankly...'  
  
He stops his finger-tapping and draws himself up higher on his pillows. The murky feverish pall that would so often cloud his vision during the initial stages of the interrogation is completely gone. His gaze is clear and shrewd, clashing with Leliana's as one dagger clashes against another. His deep, intelligent brown eyes study her keenly - and even though she withstands the scrutiny without a blink or a twitch, something tells her that he has... read her. Or at least part of her.  
  
Of course, she has read him right back. She has noticed the momentary sadness flitting over his face right before he cast his gaze down, away from her. Sadness - and also something else. A tinge of sincere shame.  
  
'Frankly,' he sighs, returning to what he has been saying,  'You ought to consider climbing out as well. Before you come to a point when the people you love look upon you and say that they have lost you'.  
  
His words echo Leliana's vision of Wendy so precisely that she grabs at the dagger at her belt, struck by a Cullen-like suspicion that he may have used blood magic to read her mind. But no, that does not feel like the right explanation. Rather... He has to be speaking from experience. Because that shame is still there; it has even caused two dark-pink spots to appear on his cheekbones. Has he a Wendy of his own? A voice of conscience that nags at him from time to time? If that is so, Leliana may even know whose face that voice hides behind.  
  
'Your son...' she says slowly, picking up her notes on a whim and rustling back to the mentions of darkspawn and black liquid - a sinkhole filled up with infected blood.  
  
'You mentioned him being ill; does he have the Blight?'  
  
The pink colour floods away from Alexius' face.  
  
'Yes,' he mouths - and then adds louder,  
  
'How did you know? I never named the specific disease; you would not let me...'  
  
Leliana, however, speaks pointedly over him. A person is unlikely to be cooperative when they learn that someone has been prying into their dreams.  
  
'And from what I... gather, he has had it for a few years. But victims of the Blight usually succumb to it in a matter of days, sometimes even hours! Does that mean you have found a means of extending the life of someone tainted by darkspawn?'  
  
Somewhere along the way, it stops being a businesslike question, and turns into a giddy outcry of excitement. Something that may have passed between Wendy and Leliana's younger (lost?) self while they were discussing new ways to help people.  
  
'Yes,' Alexius says, cocking an eyebrow curiously at the change in Leliana's demeanour. 'But it has not been enough'.  
  
'It could be enough!' Leliana exclaims, increasingly more enthused. 'If you were to replicate your research - or tell my agents how to retrieve it - it would be a wonder... a beneficial discovery for my dear friend Wendy Surana. She has been travelling across Thedas in search of a cure of her own for quite some time now. And in exchange for sharing your discoveries with her, I will see to it that your son is found and brought safely from Tevinter, or wherever he now is, under the Inquisition's protection. So that you can continue healing him. And pooling your research with Wendy's'.  
  
'I... Thank... Thank you...' Alexius mutters, looking as though he has been struck by that demon's lightning whip, and making an overwhelmed upward gesture that almost disturbs his bandages again.  
  
'Careful now,' Leliana warns him, dangerously close to making a friendly jest. 'Cassandra will have my head if I do not release you to her in mint condition. For a godless cultist, you have made quite an impression on her'.  
  
And here it is. The jest. This has taken a bit of a turn.  
  
'Oh, well... That's reassuring...' Alexius says, swallowing - and even manages a return jest, with a fresh flush creeping up his neck. 'For a godless cultist, I have found my sword-waving Andrastian captor quite impressive'.  
  
'Umm, Lady Nightingale?'  
  
The scout, who has been shuffling about at the entrance to the cell, decides that this is the right moment to clear his throat and remind everyone of his presence.  
  
'Will the orders still be the same?'  
  
Leliana exchanges another look with Alexius - and replies, almost offhandedly, while at the back of her head, a spectral Wendy smiles at her,  
  
'No. Apprehend Butler - but see that he lives'.


End file.
